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Listening to the Damocles audiobook and in it, Kor'sarro Khan is referred to by other Imperial leaders [including other space marines] as 'Captain Khan'. Khan is the White Scars name for captain, so they are calling him 'Captain Captain' . Ok, I'll still listen to the rest of the book, but it's pretty laughable that Black Library [and Phil Kelly in particular] don't know their own fluff, and kind of destroys the immersion of the book.

In a word, no.

Black library fluff is pretty much gonzoes a lot of the time, including acrobatic terminators and pedophile farseers.

Regular codex fluff is also riddled with contradictions and bits of fluff that just don't jive very well.

Fluff is not GW's strong point. Neither is rules...

Yeah, you'd think a company that is so protective of it's IP would make sure the guys writing the novels are on the same page.

Captain Khan belongs in Whitman's "Oh Captain! My captain!"

That can be explained by the other Imperial officers being ignorant of the White Scars nomenclature and assuming Kor'sarro Khan is his full Gothic name.

The relationship between the Raven Guard and White Scars being what it is, I wouldn't be surprised if the former simply don't bother to be correct about Scars traditions.

Did official fluff really reduce the historical title Khan to just captain?
Guess Kaiser is just a lieutenant in the DKOK then

 GreyHamster wrote:
That can be explained by the other Imperial officers being ignorant of the White Scars nomenclature and assuming Kor'sarro Khan is his full Gothic name.

The relationship between the Raven Guard and White Scars being what it is, I wouldn't be surprised if the former simply don't bother to be correct about Scars traditions.

/agreed

The main problems are that some of the BL authors are probably just some employee with a "cool" story they want to tell and not actually authors. The last few short story books I've bought have had about one or two at the most well written stories. Most are just awful, from a writing standpoint, not to mention from the background standpoint.

As much as I enjoyed Storm of Iron, Graeme McNiell in his next book, what was it, Dark SUn, Black Sky or whatever, blatantly copied Slayer lyrics into his dialogue. I guess lucky for him it wasn't Metallica, or they would've sued. But I was just reading it going, "Come on, man!"

 Ascalam wrote:
In a word, no.

Black library fluff is pretty much gonzoes a lot of the time, including acrobatic terminators and pedophile farseers.

Regular codex fluff is also riddled with contradictions and bits of fluff that just don't jive very well.

Fluff is not GW's strong point. Neither is rules...

I wouldn't paint the entire BL staff with the CS Goto brush. Those examples are all from his godawful Dawn of War books, and thankfully he hasn't really been seen since.

I think it's fair to assume that your average Imperial wouldn't know "Khan" meant "Captain" in the White Scars. I've been playing this game for a pretty long time, read an awful lot of fluff, and even I didn't know that. Even then, silly naming conventions and redundancies are nothing new. The primarch of the Iron Hands is named Ferrus Mannus, which means Iron Hands. It's because he literally has iron hands, you see.

Chapter Master of the Raven Guard called him "Captain Khan". No way he wouldn't know Khan = Captain if they're operating together, not sure how anyone can pretend it's anything other than a derp. Also he also meets up with a space marine he's campaigned with extensively before [trying to avoid spoilers], who also calls him 'Captain Khan'.

Like I said, not a dealbreaker, but we buy these books because the fluff is important to us. Made me cringe each time and spoilt the immersion, which is what audiobooks are for.

Put it this way.

I consider myself fairly well versed in 40k fluff.

I thought that Khan was both his title and his name.

Now that I know this is not the case due to this thread, I am sad, for no more shall White Scars commanders Khan Khan across my dreamscape.

It's less annoying than the way abbnet invents new technologies that make no sense in fluff, or how beautiful women always survive no matter what.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Did official fluff really reduce the historical title Khan to just captain?
Guess Kaiser is just a lieutenant in the DKOK then

Yup.

It doesn't even make internal sense, since the Primarch was known as Khan..

Khan is more loosely 'leader', but was used by the White Scars to denote the rank of Captain. Jaghatai Khan was called 'Khagan' by his chapter, or 'Khan of Khans', i.e. 'Captain of Captains', or 'Leader of Leaders'. Therefore it does make internal sense, but Black Library cocked it up.

Surely Phil Kelly might have realised that it was a little strange that all of the White Scars captains had the same surname?

When I was reading Ahriman Exile it depicted Ahriman in an entirely different way to all the other fluff I've seen. He is a Tzeentch hating, self hating, rather kind hater of using rubric marines! He actually has the chance to use rubric marines in the book and is disgusted by the thought and declines! What is up with that?

 Chaos Rising wrote:
When I was reading Ahriman Exile it depicted Ahriman in an entirely different way to all the other fluff I've seen. He is a Tzeentch hating, self hating, rather kind hater of using rubric marines! He actually has the chance to use rubric marines in the book and is disgusted by the thought and declines! What is up with that?

Yeah that is a whole other issue. E.g. in HH novels Fulgrim is nearly always portrayed as a petulant child [even before he turned]. In fact the primarchs have been done really badly in the whole. It also annoys me that Space Marines are usually portrayed as either gung-ho maniacs telling bad jokes as they kill things, or mavericks who ignore the chain of command. Really, they should be like Delta Force crossed with monks. Professional, pious, ruthless killers. Don't even get me started on how much of a tard they portray Kor'sarro Khan as, despite being hundreds of years old and a veteran of countless wars.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, you'd think a company that is so protective of it's IP would make sure the guys writing the novels are on the same page.

Working as intended. There is no "canon" to 40K lore, beyond a handful of basics. Black Library authors are allowed to interpret the setting however they like (which is why Dan Abnett is allowed to have joke-cracking servitors, for example) in order to tell a good story as their first-and-foremost concern. Adhering to what's in a Codex, or even in another author's work within the Black Library, is not in the job description.

Yeah, I'd rather have a good story that diverges from the established fluff a little than something that adheres to fluff to the letter. Hell, the tabletop game doesn't even stick to the fluff to the letter.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Put it this way.

I consider myself fairly well versed in 40k fluff.

I thought that Khan was both his title and his name.

Now that I know this is not the case due to this thread, I am sad, for no more shall White Scars commanders Khan Khan across my dreamscape.

Don't feel too bad, I didn't even realize Khan was a title at all, I only thought it was his name!

Tells you how many White Scars books I've read.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

 Chaos Rising wrote:
When I was reading Ahriman Exile it depicted Ahriman in an entirely different way to all the other fluff I've seen. He is a Tzeentch hating, self hating, rather kind hater of using rubric marines! He actually has the chance to use rubric marines in the book and is disgusted by the thought and declines! What is up with that?

Yeah that is a whole other issue. E.g. in HH novels Fulgrim is nearly always portrayed as a petulant child [even before he turned]. In fact the primarchs have been done really badly in the whole. It also annoys me that Space Marines are usually portrayed as either gung-ho maniacs telling bad jokes as they kill things, or mavericks who ignore the chain of command. Really, they should be like Delta Force crossed with monks. Professional, pious, ruthless killers. Don't even get me started on how much of a tard they portray Kor'sarro Khan as, despite being hundreds of years old and a veteran of countless wars.

Ben Counter did a fairly good job depicting Marines in the Grey Knights books in my opinion.

There is a character in Catch 22 called Major Major.

What rank do you think he is promoted to?

Perhaps it's a shout out to Major Major from Catch 22.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is a character in Catch 22 called Major Major.

Took the words right out of my mouth... literally.

I used to know a guy called John Aye. We always said he should go into the army...

This is a pretty good topic from a while back on the status of canon in 40k:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/513428.page

From my perspective, I always read 40k fluff as if it is a historical account trying to recount 40,000 years of galactic history, and therefore there are always going to be discrepancies. It is up to the reader to decide which parts they want to believe.

It's a convenient form of writing because gives you justification to ignore bs fluff like anything by C.S. Goto.

were you one of the guys who threw stuff at the TV when Star Trek messed up stuff from episode to episode? or did you just move on? and remember, they had continuity advisors and they would still mess up stuff...

it's fiction. don't get your panties in such a twist.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is a character in Catch 22 called Major Major.

What rank do you think he is promoted to?

In the Army every once in a while you run into a Sergeant named Major....and anyone who knows about rank structure knows that Sergeant Major is also a rank.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

viewfinder wrote:
were you one of the guys who threw stuff at the TV when Star Trek messed up stuff from episode to episode? or did you just move on? and remember, they had continuity advisors and they would still mess up stuff...

it's fiction. don't get your panties in such a twist.

I have a book I found at a used book store for like $5:


So yeah, nitpicking silly things doesn't just happen on the internet. We've been doing it before then too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and stealing from 1d4chan:

Kheradruakh the Decapitator is a Dark Eldar special character mandrake, and just a creepy fething donkey-cave. Kheradruakh isn't his real name, but a title that means "He Who Hunts Heads" or "Decapitator" in the Evil dialect of Eldarese, meaning that "Kheradruakh the Decapitator" is one of those redundant translations like "chai tea.

Apparently redundant names are a thing Phil gets a kick out of?

To the OP: No. And it is a shame.

I would say that the "Khan" thing is a minor inconsistence though. There are far bigger issues in most books.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Ben Counter did a fairly good job depicting Marines in the Grey Knights books in my opinion.

Agreed.

 Gorgrimm wrote:

As much as I enjoyed Storm of Iron, Graeme McNiell in his next book, what was it, Dark SUn, Black Sky or whatever, blatantly copied Slayer lyrics into his dialogue. I guess lucky for him it wasn't Metallica, or they would've sued. But I was just reading it going, "Come on, man!"

Sounds interesting...
Read "Dead Sky, Black Sun" some time ago, sort of disappointing. Could you please tell me in which part they copied Slayer? Big fan here (mostly their old stuff).

viewfinder wrote:
were you one of the guys who threw stuff at the TV when Star Trek messed up stuff from episode to episode? or did you just move on? and remember, they had continuity advisors and they would still mess up stuff...

it's fiction. don't get your panties in such a twist.

Shouldn't feed the troll but... not really into Star Trek [like the new ones though], but to go with your analogy, yeah, it's fairly important to me as a fan of 40k that they get titles right at least.Not as important as, say, global poverty, but I play a game of toy soldiers. I often rank them up and make pew pew noises, spend ridiculous amounts of money and time on them, and research the background to make sure I paint them in the right colour and they have the right symbols.

I'm guessing these things are pretty important to lots of other people who play 40k, otherwise there would just be Space Marines without any different chapters. GW must think it is important selling tool to have different flavours of armies too. If I buy into all that, the least these paid authors can do is spend 30 seconds googling the correct title. Plus, Phil Kelly has been with the company for years and should know better.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

viewfinder wrote:
were you one of the guys who threw stuff at the TV when Star Trek messed up stuff from episode to episode? or did you just move on? and remember, they had continuity advisors and they would still mess up stuff...

it's fiction. don't get your panties in such a twist.

Shouldn't feed the troll but... not really into Star Trek [like the new ones though], but to go with your analogy, yeah, it's fairly important to me as a fan of 40k that they get titles right at least.Not as important as, say, global poverty, but I play a game of toy soldiers. I often rank them up and make pew pew noises, spend ridiculous amounts of money and time on them, and research the background to make sure I paint them in the right colour and they have the right symbols.

I'm guessing these things are pretty important to lots of other people who play 40k, otherwise there would just be Space Marines without any different chapters. GW must think it is important selling tool to have different flavours of armies too. If I buy into all that, the least these paid authors can do is spend 30 seconds googling the correct title. Plus, Phil Kelly has been with the company for years and should know better.

Phil's expertise is in Space Elves and Chaos though so I forgive him.

 Ascalam wrote:

Black library fluff is pretty much gonzoes a lot of the time, including acrobatic terminators and pedophile farseers.

I don't even want to know.

Lets not forget atrociousness like a single Tac squad slaughtering thousands of Dark Eldar in close quarters, blowing up Dreads with overloaded Lasguns, etc in Abnett's works

 Vaktathi wrote:
Lets not forget atrociousness like a single Tac squad slaughtering thousands of Dark Eldar in close quarters, blowing up Dreads with overloaded Lasguns, etc in Abnett's works

Or 50 Guardsmen fighting through the lines of 10,000 cultists to get to an objective fuelled by the power of hope.

In the same book as the overloaded lasgun.

To be fair, I find his stuff entertaining enough. He just needs to learn how to end a fething book properly, not rush it in the last 10 pages.